Sunday, April 16, 2006

Jack Risko of Dinocrat has a great post

Iran’s gaudy announcement of its uranium enrichment capabilities, in defiance of the international community, coupled with its threat of the elimination of Israel in “one [presumably nuclear] storm” may be considered its Rhineland Moment — the equivalent in our time of Hitler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in bold and open defiance of its international agreements. The current Rhineland Moment is being met with the same international inertia and media denial that took place 70 years ago with catastrophic results.

On March 7, 1936, after years of secretly building his military capability, Hitler began the German army’s reoccupation of the Rhineland, specifically forbidden under the Versailles treaty that ended World War I, as well as by another agreement called the Treaty of Locarno. The West did nothing in response to Hitler’s violation of the treaties, preferring the vain hope of peace to the harshness of reality. The inaction of the West led to Hitler’s increased boldness and capability, and directly to WWII. Winston Churchill wrote (The Second World War, V. 1, pp. 189-196):

Once Hitler’s Germany had been allowed to rearm without active interference by the Allies and former associated Powers, a second World War was almost certain. The longer a decisive trial of strength was put off, the worse would be our chances, at the first of stopping Hitler without serious fighting, and as a second stage of being victorious after a terrible ordeal…

Hitler announced to the Reichstag that he intended to reoccupy the Rhineland, and even while he spoke, German columns…streamed across the boundary… Simultaneously, in order to baffle British and American public opinion, Hitler declared that the occupation was purely symbolic…. This provided comfort for everyone on both sides of the Atlantic who wished to be humbugged….Meanwhile, most of the British press, with The Times and the Daily Herald in the van, expressed their belief in the sincerity of Hitler’s offers of a non-aggression pact…

When Hitler met his generals after the successful reoccupation of the Rhineland, he was able to confront them with the falsity of their fears and prove to them how superior his judgement or “intuition” was to that of ordinary military men. The generals bowed. As good Germans they were glad to see their country gaining so rapidly in Europe and its former adversaries so divided and tame. Undoubtedly Hitler’s prestige and authority in the supreme circle of German power was sufficiently enhanced by this episode to encourage and enable him to march forward to greater tests. To the world he said: “All Germany’s territorial ambitions have now been satisfied.”

Today Iran pays the tiniest homage to Hitler’s double-talk when it says its nuclear program is peaceful; for the most part, however, Iran is far more brazen than Hitler and doesn’t even bother with the charade of masking its intentions, but declares them openly, confident in the elites of the West and the MSM to humbug themselves.